


Pages and Questions

by HorseCrazyWriter76



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Fluff, Gen, It really just focuses on Logan and Virgil, Roman and Patton are kinda pushed to the background, Song Inspired, Trans Virgil, there's some angst, trans Logan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 10:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16809178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorseCrazyWriter76/pseuds/HorseCrazyWriter76
Summary: Annabelle had always been studious and didn't have time for any feelingsy stuff. But this one feeling refused to be ignored, and when she goes to her friend Virgil for help, she ended up digging up some stuff she didn't know about herself.





	Pages and Questions

**Author's Note:**

> I hit a bit of writers block with On Winter's Tail, so I wrote this. It was originally inspired by The Village by Wrabel. I may come back to this later, but, at least for now, it's just a one shot.

Annabelle stared at herself in the mirror. It was Saturday evening, tomorrow she would go to church and pray for the exact same thing: to stop feeling this way. She didn’t hate herself. She was intelligent, diligent, responsible, why wouldn’t she like herself? She got all A’s, she was slated to be valedictorian, all things to be proud of. No, Annabelle didn’t hate herself. What she hated was what she saw in the mirror. She was of average build and height with pale skin, brown hair, brown eyes, there was nothing outstanding about her appearance. She didn’t hate being unextraordinary in appearance, either, after all that would just attract unwanted attention and that wasn’t something she wanted. What she hated was her body. Specifically the parts that slapped the label ‘girl’ onto her, and whenever she head her own name called out to her. She knew she couldn’t do anything about it, at least that was what she told herself. She buried herself in her books and studies and tried to distract herself from the girl looking back at her in the mirror, but something in her broke every time she heard someone referring to ‘that smart girl, Annabelle’. It wasn’t wrong for them to call her that, afterall, that was what she was, a girl named Annabelle, but every bit of her being that she hadn’t carefully schooled to listen to logic and logic alones rebelled at the idea.

Annabelle lifted herself out of her bed and stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom. The area around the sink was littered with makeup containers and brushes, with a small corner dedicated to toothbrushes and toothpaste. The hatred of her body almost always centered around her chest. So, what if she made her chest disappear? She couldn’t wave a magic wand and expect them to vanish, but what she did have access to waas bandages. She fished them out from the first aid kit tucked next to the cleaning supplies under the sink. She wrapped them tightly around her chest and looked at herself in the mirror again. There was barely a bulge where her chest should have been. She knew she couldn’t wear them for long, she was having a hard time breathing with it wrapped around her chest, but she didn’t deny that she liked the result. She heard her parents waking up and quickly replaced the bandages before showering and completing her morning routine. She twisted her wet hair in to a braid before heading downstairs for breakfast.

“Hurry, sweetheart, we wouldn’t want to be late for church,” her dad grunted as he looked over the newspaper.

“Of course, Papa,” she replied and made herself some toast and orange juice. Annabelle’s mother arrived downstairs shortly after, and they headed off to church as soon as they had all finished eating.

Annabelle sat patiently through the sermons, lip syncing along with the hymns. It wasn’t like she didn’t know them, she had heard them every Sunday for her entire life, but her voice was another thing she didn’t like about herself. She was good at faking it during debates or presentations, but she avoided using it as much as possible. At last it was over and they all headed home. Annabelle honestly wasn’t sure that God was out there, but she kept her thoughts to herself. There wasn’t necessarily proof against Him, but there also wasn’t proof for Him. Honestly, she thought it was nice to think there was someone out there who deeply loved and cared for her, but she also thought it was just that, a nice thought.

Monday after school she spread her books out in the library to do her homework. She didn’t particularly like her house, with its constant reminders of the religion she had to participate in, and she had access to more reference materials here anyways.

“Hi, Annie!” Patton yelled, earning a pointed glare from the librarian.

“Good evening, Annabelle,” Roman added in perhaps an even louder voice and earning another glare from the librarian.

“Good afternoon, Patton and Roman,” Annabelle replied, giving a light internal laugh. Patton had approached her in freshman year after seeing her sitting all alone, and while it was a rocky start, they eventually developed a deep bond, and Patton pulled Roman in to their friendship when they were both sophomores. The last member of their little quartet, Virgil, was the last to enter and only greeted the others with a small wave before wandering down the towering shelves of books, probably to look for a new adventure book or reference materials. 

“How are you today?” Annabelle asked.

“The best!” they replied at the same time. She raised her eyebrows in question, and they looked at each other giggling. 

“Roman asked me to the Valentine’s Dance,” Patton finally answered her implied question, with a slight bit of nervousness creeping in to his beam. He knew Annabelle’s family was very strictly christian, and wasn’t sure if they were the ‘God loves everyone equally’ type or the ‘Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve’ type.

“And he said yes,” Roman added, although Annabelle had already gathered that from their general attitude. Inside she was conflicted. While she herself didn’t have anything against people being themselves, she had never been confronted with her best friends being anything other than heterosexual. That was likely because she usually kept everyone at arm’s length, but that didn’t entirely matter. Her parents had drilled it into her that being gay was bad when she had tried to present more masculinely. She hadn’t quite understood it then, afterall she had only been 8, although now she understood that they thought she was trying to attract girls, and now her knowledge of how kind and definitely  _ not bad _ her friends were with this lesson. At last she shook it out of her head, it didn’t matter, did it. They were her friends and she would support them no matter what.

“I am quite happy for you. I suggest that you ever happen to meet my parents, you do not inform them of your relationship, as they do not support people being themselves unless that conforms to being heterosexual,” she replied. Patton’s grin widened, if that was even possible. 

“Now, as much as I enjoy your presence, I have a lot of chemistry homework I need to complete,” she continued.

“We shall leave at once!” Roman replied, then the two boys swept out of the library. 

Annabelle had a few precious moments of peace for studying before Virgil emerged from the shelves of books and perched next to her.

“If you have time, could you help me on this biology question?” he asked, taking a piece of paper out of his backpack.

“Of course, which question is it?” she replied pushing her books to the side to help the freshman with his work. The question wasn’t too complicated, and it didn’t take long before Virgil nodded in understanding and answered the question before moving on to the rest of his work. Annabelle tried to focus on the questions she was supposed to be answering, but her thoughts kept circling back to the uncomfortable feeling of her bra wire, which was beginning to poke in to her side. It made her hyperconscious of her chest, and she had a strong aversion to the feeling. She glanced at Virgil, who’s purple bangs were mostly shielding his face from her view. She paused for a moment. Out of the quartet, she and Virgil were the most logical minded. He was the most likely to give her a helpful answer without spreading the information around. She took a deep breath,  _ here goes nothing. _

“Virgil, may I ask you a question?” she said. He looked up.

“Sure,” he said suspiciously.

“Have you ever felt very uncomfortable about a part of your body that correlates to your gender?” she said. He blinked a couple times.

“Like, dysphoria uncomfortable?” he asked. It was Annabelle’s turn to blink in confusion. She had never heard of the term ‘dysphoria’.

“Could you please explain ‘dysphoria uncomfortable’?” she asked. Virgil was utterly surprised by that. He thought she knew practically everything.

“As in body dysphoria? It’s something trans people feel where they feel they’re born in the wrong body. Hate their body, as far as I know usually centered around the voice and chest?” he asked.

“Yes, that,” Annabelle said, going over the words again in her mind. The word described a lot of what she felt, and she wondered why she hadn’t heard of it.  _ The public education system,  _ she answered herself with an internal grimace.

“Uh, yeah,” he mumbled.

“Do you still feel that way?” she immediately asked.

“Not as much,” he mumbled.

“What aided you in relieving the feelings?” she pressed. Virgil froze, was he really doing this? He took a couple deep breaths. This was Annabelle, she was kind, she was reasonable, she would accept him.

“Transition, like, starting on T, changing my name, changing my pronouns,” he started to blubber.

“You’re trans?” she asked, everything quickly clicking in to place.

“Don’t hate me,” Virgil breathed, although apparently she had freaky good hearing because she replied.

“I don’t hate you. People should be who they want to be. I have a lot to think about. See you tomorrow, Virgil,” she said, and began to pack up her things. She didn’t want to stay out any more with all the new information whirling around in her brain. 

The next morning she stood in front of the mirror with the bandages wrapped around her chest again, quietly narrating her actions with he/him pronouns. It felt so right it surprised her. She, he, was a boy. He was trans. He closed his eyes. He would be kicked out if he told his parents. He knew it. He opened his eyes again and let the bandages fall from around his chest. Maybe this sensation was just because of how his intelligence was looked down on simply because of something he couldn’t control. He shook his head. If it was only because of a social construct, which gender itself was, he supposed, he/him pronouns wouldn’t feel so right. It didn’t completely abolish the thought, but he quickly hid the bandages and got ready as normal. He met Virgil in the library the next day, and, after saying a quick hello to Roman and Patton, he turned to Virgil.

“How did you find out you were trans?” he asked.

“My body didn’t feel right and he/him pronouns did,” he mumbled without looking up from his paper. He took a deep breath and looked up at Annabelle, “Why? You questioning your gender or something?” he said in his trademark ‘I couldn’t care less’ voice.

“Yes,” he replied. Virgil looked up at his friend in surprise.

“Have you told your parents? They could get you a counselor, it helped me,” he started off strongly, then mumbled the last part.

“If I told them, they would take it as me coming out as gay and send me to conversion therapy,” he replied.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he replied, pasting a smirk on to his face, although his face had somehow managed to pale a shade at Annabelle’s words. They talked for a little while longer, but eventually returned to their studies, both of their heads swirling with the information they were learning about each other.

In the days that followed, Annabelle continued to question himself, but the more he dug, the more it seemed he was trans. Eventually he confessed to Virgil that he was pretty sure he was trans, and he had offered to help him pick a name. Now they were sitting together at the library again, and Virgil was bouncing name suggestions off of his friend.

“Andrew? Alex? Aaron? Anthony? Abraham? Aiden? Asher?” he asked, and Annabelle shook his head at each of them. 

“I want it to mean something, not just be a male version of my birth name,” she sighed and readjusted her glasses.

“Well, what do you want it to mean?” he asked, tapping a pencil against his knee.

“My logical thinking is something I value highly. Perhaps a name based off of Logos?” he replied.

“Logan?” he suggested. Annabelle smiled, it felt right in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Logan,” he repeated, testing the way it rolled over his tongue, “Thank you, Virgil,” he added, as Roman and Patton burst in to the library to the annoyance of the librarian.

“Hey Annabelle! Hey Virge! Roman’s been chosen as the lead for the new play!” Patton squealed.

“Cool,” Virgil said.

“That sounds very exciting,” Logan replied.

“I know right!” Roman squealed.

“We are in a library,” he sighed.

“My sincerest apologies, Orphan Annie,” he stage whispered.

“Somehow I do not believe you are taking this seriously,” he sighed, “And it’s Logan.”


End file.
